Biography
Thomas Mulcaire was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1971. He began a Fine Arts degree at Wits University, and then travelled abroad before returning to complete a BA degree in History of Art and Literature at Wits in 1993. He now lives in Ubatuba, Brazil. Mulcaire’s work takes many different forms and crosses into film, photography, sculpture, and installation. In particular, he has worked on a number of collaborations that interrogate the assumed limits of authorship in relation to the artwork. One such project is the Interpolar Transnational Art Science Constellation (ITASC), which he founded in 2005 with Marko Peljhan. ITASC is described on their website as ‘a decentralized network of individuals and organisations working collaboratively in the fields of art, engineering and science on the interdisciplinary development and deployment of renewable energy, waste recycling systems and sustainable architecture to enable the production and distribution of open-format, open-source remote field research in Antarctica and the Arctic. ITASC is a lichen-like structure sharing and integrating local knowledge, resources and skills across seven continents in order to symbiotically engage with the air, ocean, earth and space commons.’ In February 2009, Mulcaire, Ntsikelelo Ntshingila, and Pol Taylor installed ICEPAC (the ITASC Catabatic Experimental Platform for Antarctic Culture) at Vesleskarvet Nunatak in the Dronning Maud Land sector of Antarctica, the world’s first mobile polar research base to be powered entirely by solar and wind energy. Such projects illustrate Mulcaire’s interest in various forms of networks – spatial, human, technological, and cellular, as well as his concern with the way in which we inhabit and make use of the limited resources of our planet. Mulcaire has exhibited at the Saõ Paulo, Sydney, and Ushuaia biennales. He has worked as an exhibitions co-coordinator (notably for the Johannesburg Biennale in 1995), an assistant curator at Documenta, founder and director of the ICA in Cape Town, as well as a curator for projects in Kassel, New York, Saõ Paulo, and Perth. In 2008 and 2009 he exhibited his work at the Goodman Gallery Johannesburg and Cape Town. This year he participates in Unwetter at the Akademie der Kunst in Berlin, CUE at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and Halakasha at the Standard Bank Gallery in Johannesburg.
Solo Exhibitions
2009
Thomas Mulcaire, Goodman Gallery Cape, Cape Town
2008
Thomas Mulcaire, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
2003
Library of Congress (1998-2003), South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa, (collaboration with Joseph Kpobly)
2003
A Luta Continua, Spectrum Gallery, Perth, Australia
1999
Quelques Sculpture Polychrome, Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris
Group Exhibitions
2009
Bienal del Fin del Mundo, Ushuaia, Argentina*
2009
Sources – Contemporary Sculpture in the Landscape, Nirox Foundation, Gauteng*
2009
ICEPAC, Vesleskarvet Nunatak, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica
2009
Intemperies, Centro Cultural Oi Futuro, Rio De Janeiro, and OCA Parque Ibirapuera, Sao Paulo, Brazil*
2008
Art Unlimited, Art Basel 39, Basel, Switzerland*
2007
New Nature, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand*
2006-7
Groundhog – ITASC Automatic Weather Station, SANAE base, Dronning Maud Land,
Antarctica
2006
National Park at Kabinett, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany (collaboration with Amanda
Rodrigues Alves)
2005
Skintstream at Sound Kitchen Studio (Alexandra, South Africa); Container Project (Clarendon, Jamaica);
Mediashed (Southend, United Kingdom), (collaboration with Graham Harwood/Mongrel) (CD)
2004
Biennale of Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, (collaboration with Amanda
Rodrigues Alves)*
2002
Noon Day Gun at Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria
2000
Johnny at the Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels, Belgium, (collaboration with Craigie Horsfield)
1998
XXIV Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, (collaboration with Joseph Kpobly)*
Curated Exhibitions
2005 -present
Co-Founder/Director: I-TASC: Interpolar Transnational Art Science Constellation
1999-2005
Founder and Director: Institute for Contemporary Art, Cape Town
1995-1997
Assistant Curator: documenta X, Kassel
1993-1995
Exhibitions Coordinator: 1995 Johannesburg Biennale Commissions
2006
Resident Fellow, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany
2004/2005
Commission Nationale Consultative, French Ministry of Culture and Communication, Research and Residence Grant
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